§ 1. Why slaves are not of much use to hunters.
Among the “clear cases” of the second chapter of our first Part the following are hunting and fishing tribes.
| Positive cases. North America: | Aleuts, | |
| Athka Aleuts, | ||
| Koniagas, | ||
| Tlinkits, | ||
| Haidas, | ||
| Tsimshian, | ||
| Kwakiutl, | ||
| Bilballas, | ||
| Ahts, | ||
| tribes about Puget Sound, | ||
| Fish Indians, | ||
| Tacullies, | ||
| Atnas, | ||
| Similkameem, | ||
| Chinooks. | ||
| 15 | ||
| South America: | Abipones, | |
| Tehuelches. | ||
| 2 | ||
| Siberia: | Kamchadales. | |
| 1 | ||
| 18.[[191]] | ||
| Negative cases. North America: | the 9 tribes of Eskimos proper, | |
| Kutchins, | ||
| Chepewyans, | ||
| Montagnais, | ||
| Ojibways, | ||
| Ottawas, | ||
| Shahnees, | ||
| Crees, | ||
| Blackfeet nation, | ||
| Sioux, | ||
| Assiniboins, | ||
| Hupas, | ||
| Apaches, | ||
| Lower Californians. | ||
| 22 | ||
| South America: | wild tribes of North Mexico, | |
| Botocudos, | ||
| Charruas, | ||
| Minuanes, | ||
| Puelches, | ||
| Fuegians. | ||
| 6 | ||
| Australia: | the 30 Australian tribes. | |
| 30 | ||
| Malay Archipelago: | Kubus. | |
| 1 | ||
| Indo-Chinese peninsula: | Andamanese, | |
| Southern Nicobarese. | ||
| 2 | ||
| India: | some Santal tribes, | |
| Veddahs. | ||
| 2 | ||
| Siberia: | Ghiliaks, | |
| Tuski of the Coast, | ||
| settled Koryakes. | ||
| 3 | [[192]] | |
| Pigmies, etc.: | Bushmen, | |
| Muscassequere, | ||
| Akkas. | ||
| 3 | ||
| Hamitic peoples: | Wandorobo. | |
| 1 | ||
| 70. |
So the great majority of the 88 cases we have got are negative. This fact agrees with the opinion of those theorists who assert that this economic state is unfavourable to the development of slavery. The existence of 18 positive cases, however, shows that those are wrong who hold that no tribe unacquainted with agriculture and cattle-breeding ever has slaves.
We have to explain now, why most hunters and fishers do not keep slaves. In a few cases the fact that they are inclosed between superior peoples and reduced to a dependent, powerless state, might afford sufficient explanation. So the Wandorobo, according to Thomson, are considered by the Massai as a kind of serfs; and Johnston calls them a helot race[1]. But with most of our hunters and fishers, who do not keep slaves, this is not the case, as is proved by their being often at war with their neighbours. It has been shown that the Ojibways and Sioux in North America, the Charruas, Minuanes and Puelches in South America either killed or adopted their prisoners, that the Andamanese also sometimes adopt captive children, that the Montagnais generally tortured their prisoners to death, that warfare is also known among the Botocudos[2]. And the most striking evidence is afforded by the Australians, an isolated group consisting entirely of hunters, in which slavery is altogether unknown. So the non-existence of slavery among the great majority of the hunters and fishers must be due on the whole to more general causes; and only if the latter fail to account for the absence of slavery among the [[193]]Wandorobo or any other tribe in a similar subjected state, may we have recourse to an explanation by this state.
What general causes may there be? Spencer, speaking of hunters, says: “In the absence of industrial activity, slaves are almost useless; and, indeed, where game is scarce, are not worth their food”[3]. It is true, where food is more plentiful than it is among most hunters, slaves can be of more use; but we cannot think that the only cause why slavery does not exist, is that the slave is “not worth his food”, i.e. that the produce of a man’s labour cannot much exceed his own primary wants. For we meet with several instances, among these tribes, of people whose wants are provided for by the labour of others. In our first Part we saw, that the Australian men depend largely for their subsistence on the work of their wives. Some other statements are indicative of a similar state of things. Dawson says of the natives of the Western District of Victoria: “Great respect is paid to the chiefs and their wives and families. They can command the services of every one belonging to their tribe. As many as six young bachelors are obliged to wait on a chief, and eight young unmarried women on his wife; and as the children are of superior rank to the common people, they also have a number of attendants to wait on them.… Food and water, when brought to the camp, must be offered to them first, and reeds provided for each in the family to drink with, while the common people drink in the usual way. Should they fancy any article of dress, opossum rug, or weapon, it must be given without a murmur”[4]. And of the chiefs of the Andaman Islanders we are told: “They and their wives are at liberty to enjoy immunity from the drudgery incidental to their mode of life, all such acts being voluntarily performed for them by the young unmarried persons living under their headship”[5].
So there are people here whose wants are provided for by the work of others; therefore scarcity of food cannot be the only cause why slavery does not exist, and we have to examine what other causes there may be[6]. [[194]]
The reader will remember, from the details given in the first Part, that slaves are frequently acquired from without the community to which the slave’s owner belongs, by war, kidnapping or trade. It may be convenient to give this phenomenon the technical name of extratribal slavery, whereas we shall speak of intratribal slavery in those cases where the slave remains within the same community to which he belonged before being enslaved, e.g. a debtor-slave. Now the keeping of extratribal slaves must be very difficult to hunters. Hunting supposes a nomadic life; and the hunter, who roams over vast tracts of land in pursuit of his game has not much opportunity to watch the movements of his slave, who may be apt to run away at any moment. And if the slave himself is set to hunt, the difficulty amounts nearly to impossibility. Moreover, the hunting slave will be much more inclined to run away than a soil-tilling slave; for the latter, during his flight, has to live in a make-shift way on the spontaneous products of nature; whereas the former continues hunting, as he has always done; his flight has not the character of a flight.
Another cause is the following. Primitive hunters generally live in small groups. Hildebrand remarks that at the lowest stage of culture men live together in families or small tribes. Several instances are given in his book. “The Nilgala Veddahs are distributed through their lovely country in small septs or families.” The Indians of the Rocky Mountains “exist in small detached bodies or families.” The Fuegians “appear to live in families, not in tribes.” The same applies to the Indians of Upper California, the Woguls of Siberia, the Kubus, the Negritos, the Bushmen, etc.[7]. And Sutherland remarks: “The middle savages, on the average of six races, reach about 150 as the social unit.” “The upper savages, as typified by the North American Indians, would average about 360 to an encampment”[8]. Now it is easy to understand, that such small communities would not be able to develop much coercive power over slaves introduced into the tribe from foreign parts. A fugitive slave would be very soon beyond the reach of the tribe; and a comparatively small number of slaves would be dangerous to [[195]]the maintenance of power by the tribesmen within the tribe.
But the nomadic life of hunting tribes does not prevent the existence of intratribal slavery; such slavery might even be compatible with living in small groups. There are however other, more internal causes.